aren't as severe in these Asian markets. This is why cell density isn't an issue in Korea for example. In the U.S. it'll take years from selecting the location, negotiating with the landlord, going through the municipal approval, and that's even before you start dealing with the backhaul providers that are known to be extremely slow.

As for the executive responsibility, in these Asian countries a CEO or a CTO wouldn't last a year if he kept sitting on 120MHz of nationwide undeployed capacity, while the network is conistently performing dead last. Now try 5+ years of that nonsense, while telling people to "just wait", "it's gonna be the best network", "it's right around the corner", we're full steam ahead", etc...

Re: next-gen network techs > especially considering much tougher site acquisition permits and > other jurisdictional hurdles in the U.S. wireless marketplace. In > Asia it's much, much easier to obtain these, not to mention much > more responsible executive culture in general.

@milan:

In Asia too site acquisition is not quick or cheap. In some countries tower cos exist. In many others these dont exist. And the network vendor or its contractor has to do a buildout. Working for Telenor that operates in six Asian geographies I can speak with some confidence here.

Can you please explain responsible executive culture that you are referring to?

Re: next-gen network techs 2.5GHz spectrum is absolutely perfect for dense urban markets, but you can't execute on 2.5GHz without significantly improving cell density. Sprint's cell site density hasn't been stellar even for 1900MHz band as they've been relying for decades on Verizon's in-market CDMA roaming and avoiding the buildout. Obviously in data centric day and age if you don't have sufficient density, it'll be nothing but a bag of hurt.

That said, it's rediculously tough to build out 20k needed macros or small cell sites in 18 months, especially considering much tougher site acquisition permits and other jurisdictional hurdles in the U.S. wireless marketplace. In Asia it's much, much easier to obtain these, not to mention much more responsible executive culture in general.

next-gen network techs Sprint does have powerful spectrum holdings that can drastically improve its network when combined. I don't think its strategy needs to differ materially, it just needs to execute on it better and faster. I do wonder if SoftBank has other network optimization strategies to employ as well though. It's been an innovator there.

I also wonder if we'll hear more about small cells from Sprint. They used to talk them up, but have been silent for the past year. I imagine they will be critical to the "Next-Gen Network" as well.